


Enigma

by starlightwalking



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Back to Middle-Earth Month, Celebrity Crush, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 18:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18016310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking
Summary: Pengolodh writes the history of the Noldor, but there's one Noldo prince he can't learn enough about.





	Enigma

**Author's Note:**

> I did not expect this to run as long as it did! But I had fun, and that's what really matters, right? :)
> 
> I knew next-to-nothing about Pengolodh coming into this fic, but instead of learning about him...I ended up realizing how little we actually know about Finarfin?? This is hands-down the weirdest pairing I've ever written, and it took a lot of thinking for me to get it to work!
> 
> I got four (4) hits on my cards today, and boy did this ship make things difficult to plan for, so I split them up into two fics. Once you've had a good chuckle here, head on over to my other fic for a healthy dose of Elrond angst :)
> 
> The bingo squares I used for this fic were Pengolodh/Finarfin from the Crack Ships card (I would NEVER have come up with this on my own!) and "thunder/fragment/apple/arch" from the Four Words card.

Pengolodh is a loremaster. He records the history of the Noldor dutifully, keeping his feelings out of his work as best he can, or at least only repeating the common consensus if no true version of events can be found. He adapts material from his predecessors and continues the work of Fëanor and Rúmil with respect to their original writings.

Pengolodh lived in Gondolin and knew King Turgon personally. He learned of the Years of the Trees from him, writing of Fingolfin and Fëanor's feud, the Darkening of Valinor, and the Flight of the Noldor. Pengolodh knows the High Kings of the Noldor better than anyone else in his field, and he preserves the histories of Fëanor, Fingolfin, Fingon, Turgon, and Gil-Galad as only a true scholar can.

His chief record is  _The Annals of Beleriand_ , a history he is proud to call his own. He endured the events of the First Age, surviving to tell the tale to a new generation of his people. Pengolodh remembers the glorious towers and arches of Gondolin and mourns their destruction, but even as he escaped, he clutched his records to his chest. He knew then, and knows now, that while his own life is immaterial, his work is vital. It must be preserved.

Pengolodh needs the whole story for his history to be precise and accurate. He is always researching and revising his words, correcting mistakes and adding more detail. It frustrates him that he has never been to Aman, for there he could interview both the dead and the living. But as much as his soul longs for the sea, Pengolodh cannot sail west. If he does, who shall keep the records? And even if he can gain a first-hand account of the past, he cannot send it back to his people in Middle-earth.

Other loremasters work alongside him, but only Pengolodh is the recorder of the Noldor's entire history. There are precious few souls who remember the world before the Sun, and he alone has established a rapport with them.

Pengolodh is a staunch defender of High King Fingolfin, whom he met but once, though he heard much of his deeds from his son Turgon. He holds little patience with colleagues who debate Fingolfin's wisdom and bravery in confronting Morgoth, and he will admit that it is a struggle for him to present Fëanor's deeds in a balanced light. For all he was a renowned loremaster himself, Fëanor was a reckless and dangerous man who led many to their doom.

Pengolodh is intimately familiar with the stories of Fëanor and Fingolfin. It is they who led the Noldor into Beleriand, they who waged war against Morgoth. But he compiles the history of  _all_  the Noldo princes, and those mighty kings had a third brother: High King Finarfin, who remained in Valinor, leading the Noldor there. But while there are countless tales of the elder sons, Pengolodh has only fragments and whispers that tell of Finarfin.

To Pengolodh, Finarfin is a figure of supreme intelligence, an exciting mystery, a man reckoned as the most beautiful of Finwë's sons. Those qualities live on in his only surviving child, Lady Galadriel, and Pengolodh has tried time and time again to wring stories of her father from the great lady. Galadriel, however, is unsympathetic to his pleas.

Pengolodh resides in Imladris, grateful for Lord Elrond's wisdom and perspective, but Elrond is young compared to Galadriel. Pengolodh obsesses over Finarfin, scouring the histories of Rúmil and Fëanor, but neither of his predecessors were elaborative on Finwë's youngest child. Rúmil mentioned Finarfin only in passing; Fëanor focused his wrath on Fingolfin, only leaving scraps of information on his other half-brother. Pengolodh resents them almost as much as he does Galadriel: they  _could_  tell him about Finarfin, but they refuse to!

His last visit to Lothlórien ended disastrously. In prying even the smallest details from the Lady of the Golden Wood, Pengolodh incurred Galadriel's wrath. She growled at him in a voice like thunder and forbade him not only from asking any further questions, but from visiting her realm at all! Pengolodh returned to Imladris in a huff, making sure to mark down Lady Galadriel's pride in his histories.

Pengolodh never took a spouse: no love could match his passion for his work. He admires many people, but he has had little opportunity to meet them, as he acquaints himself with them only through his histories. But as the Second and Third Ages march slowly on, with few new events to record, Pengolodh finds himself lonely. He returns again and again to the tales of the past, and he fixates on the same man he knows so little about.

Finarfin is an enigma. Finarfin is unknowable. Pengolodh loves and venerates Finarfin in a way he could never love a person in the flesh. He knows that Finarfin is married (to Eärwen of the Teleri, with four children, one of which he cannot bear to think of—this is one of the few details of Finarfin's character that he possesses), but Pengolodh is half-convinced that he would be unable to resist the golden king's allure if he were to meet him.

He fantasizes of their encounter: Pengolodh would fall to his knees, weeping, and Finarfin would lift his chin ever-so-gently, inquiring what was the matter. Pengolodh would shower him in praise and questions. Finarfin, moved by such devotion, would answer all; surely he was more gracious than his daughter! Pengolodh would record all he heard, historical and not, until he realized that Finarfin had trailed off in wonder.

He would ask another question. Finarfin's answer would be soft and gentle. Then the king would smile, brush aside a strand of his lovely golden hair—lovelier even than Galadriel's!—and take Pengolodh's hand, warmth in his clear blue eyes. He would begin to question Pengolodh, to ask of his life and his work. Pengolodh would tell him all, spilling his secrets and confessing his deepest desires. He would be ashamed, to speak of such feelings for this king he had only just begun to know, but Finarfin would silence him with a kiss. And  _then_ —

Pengolodh never let himself think further than that. No, it was too complicated to... And if he dwelt on their hesitant touches, their soft words, he would always find his imagination interrupted by the presence of Galadriel, irate as ever that he would dare learn more of her wondrous father!

Pengolodh walksd in the apple orchards of Imladris one summer evening, his book open to a portrait of Finarfin he had so carefully drawn. He is a writer, not an artist, and his depiction of the golden king is far from the beauteous image in his mind, but such a labor of love gives him comfort in his waking hours. Distractedly, Pengolodh adds another strand of perfect golden hair to Finarfin's head, humming as he walks, until he stops short only a few inches from another elf.

Startled, Pengolodh drops his book and gapes up at the sight of the person before him. The elf is tall, crowned, fair and beautiful, and possesses golden hair so glorious and bright that it must have basked in the light of the Two Trees. For a brief, elated moment, Pengolodh thinks that Finarfin had come to Imladris—! But when the figure turns around, his wild hopes are dashed, and he finds he cannot help but scowl.

"Oh," says Lady Galadriel. "My apologies. I did not see you there...Pengolion, is it?"

"Pengolodh," he replies stiffly. Of course. She must be visiting her daughter, Lord Elrond's wife. "Begging your ladyship's pardon, but I should be on my way. I do not wish to ruin your evening with my incessant questions."

"Ah!" Galadriel nods. "Yes, you are the loremaster." She glances down at her feet, where Pengolodh's book lays open to the drawing of her father. Pengolodh flushes as she bends to pick it up, raising an eyebrow at the picture.

"You still admire him so," she remarks, tracing Finarfin's image with her finger. "It is not healthy, my friend."

Pengolodh snatches the book from her hands, biting back a retort. "As I said, my lady. I must be going before you take further offense to a humble historian's curiosities."

He turns, blushing furiously. At least she had not flipped the page—there are far more damning images to be found within his doodles!

"I am not offended, only exhausted," Galadriel says as he strode away. "Thoughts of Valinor are painful. I miss my father dearly."

Pengolodh scowls, glad she can no longer see his face. "My apologies," he repeats.

"It is a lovely drawing," she comments. He pauses, glancing back at her, expecting to see a wicked grin on her face, but her manner is as serious as ever. "Though his eyes are not  _quite_  so blue. They are more, hmm...cloudy grey, like the sky shortly after it rains."

 _Now_  comes the smirk. Pengolodh turns and flees, mortified—but he marks that detail down in his annals nonetheless, and in his dreams that night, Finarfin's gaze is a soft grey instead of piercing blue.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and commenting!  
> You can find me on tumblr [@arofili](http://arofili.tumblr.com/).


End file.
